It should be noted that the limited data plans for both AT&T and Verizon mean that at the max 4G speed of 73 Mbps, you could use all your bandwidth for the entire month in less than <i>three and a half minutes</i> (2 GB plan).<p>The overages of $10/GB per month on both services mean once you go over your plan, you'll be looking at a little over $5/minute in new charges.<p>It is possible (though highly unlikely) to rack up over $200K/month in bandwidth charges if you managed to find an empty 4G cell for a month.<p>Sadly Sprint, which has unlimited 4G last i checked, was absent from the release of the new iPad.
The world of LCD panels baffles me. For some reason Apple can sell an iPad with a 2048x1536 IPS screen for $500 but your average $1,000 laptop comes with a crappy 1366x768 TFT screen or maybe 1920x1080 if you're lucky.
The 264dpi screen is a big deal. I was at a workshop with Edward Tufte this week. He extoled the virtures of using paper for information-rich data transfer. Having paper-like screen resolution is an obvious advantage for disseminating information.<p>I'd like to see a startup take on PowerPoint by releasing software to compose iPad-friendly presentations. Think one-pagers full of text, graphs, and figures. On an iPad they could be interactive, annotated, and linked together. Every iPad-toting meeting goer could scan a QR code on the way in to get on the same page, and then sit and <i>discuss</i> the content. Gone will be the days of presenters doling out bullet points at excruciatingly slow pace.<p>Having read Isaacson's biography of Jobs, it seems that Apple may be gunning to disrupt the textbook market. Having paper-like resolution is a great step in that direction.
Although the HN title (currently) says "Ipad 3", Apple seems to actually be calling it the new "iPad" (edit: "new iPad", not "New iPad"). It's a bit confusing: next year, is it then the "old iPad"?<p>But, we don't really have that issue with many other Apple products (iPod nano, all Macs, etc) that use the same naming scheme. So we'll see how bad it actually ends up.
It's 10% heavier:<p><a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/07/new-ipad-vs-ipad-2/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/07/new-ipad-vs-ipad-2/</a><p>Yes, I know why, but I was hoping against hope it would get a little lighter. But I didn't think it would. Maybe next year, when there's no reason to up the resolution.
I'm still somewhat amazed they haven't found a better way to handle updating the store. I understand that there is a marketing aspect to taking it offline, but it should be back online and updated immediately after the event is over.
It's 'the new iPad', not the iPad 3. Apple is evidently going to follow the same pattern as it does with its computers and is doing away with a sequential numbering system.<p>So the next iPad will also just be 'the new iPad' the same way that every year we see 'the new MacBook Pro'. The iPhone will probably follow suit.
No mention of bumping the RAM from 512 MB to 1 GB. Even my TF101 Tegra 2 tablet has 1 GB of RAM. I wonder how much the 4x larger retina display assets will increase RAM usage.<p>Edit: I guess it does have 1 GB of RAM. <a href="http://chronicwire.com/the-ipad-3-has-1gb-of-ram" rel="nofollow">http://chronicwire.com/the-ipad-3-has-1gb-of-ram</a>
I'm excited that they're addressing user complaints about 'content creation'. iPhoto looks particularly impressive; it looks like people will be using their tablet devices for more than just content consumption now.
Since the pixels are multiplied by 4, and the GPU only by 2, does this means the real world performance (in games) of the iPad 3 GPU should be <i>half</i> the performance of iPad 2?
Is it just me or do the comparison pics of the old iPad screen vs. new retina display on this page look exactly the same? <a href="http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/</a><p>Edit: never mind, there's a zoom widget I didn't notice.
Apparently it's just "iPad". Not 3, not HD. Maybe people will always call it the iPad 3 or maybe we'll end up calling it the 2012 iPad or the 3rd gen or something.
I'm pretty psyched about the 1080p video. We just released our iPad app, which compresses video and shares it with people / teams, and my hope is that this will drive further adoption. Also, I want one, and I want to be able to share the video I take with it.<p>I do resent how poorly my iPad 1 performs now though. I only bought it 18 months ago!
I'm always kind of surprised that the online store doesn't update instantly. I have to imagine that their "We'll be back soon" splash page kills a lot of potential impulse purchases.<p>It seems to be back now, but the iPhone is showing "From $0", and clicking on the iPad gives an "Oops" error page. Couldn't this all be worked out in staging?
Pre-ordering will be a lottery. I've been trying to get to the online Store for more than half an hour and I get either server error, "we'll be back soon" or incredibly slow connection (which then fails). I managed to get once to iPad page but clicking on any link brought me back to server error.
Wonder how many are willing to upgrade from Ipad 2? I have an Ipad 2, I don't see a need to upgrade.<p>I am sure the tablet devices will follow a similar cycle as iPhone. Upgrade once in 2 years. I am beginning to wonder, the only aspects that might make me want to upgrade to IPad 4 next year, could be faster processor and more memory, thus making the overall experience better. I am sure Apple will have some exclusive software that will run only on their latest device (ex: Siri), that might force me to upgrade. Given how I use the Ipad right now - Videos, Netflix and eBooks (very limited browsing), I am ok with what I have now.<p>Will be good to know some statistics on how many upgraded to Ipad 2 from Ipad 1.
I'm glad they didn't call it "iPad HD". Call me pedantic, but HD should be limited to ITU 'HDTV' broadcast spec, and the iPad 3's resolution doesn't fit. Instead it just confuses things with imprecise language.
Everyone is speaking about bandwidth speed, but what about the first major product launch of the post-Steve era? What was your impression about it? A little bit of something clearly wasn't there if you ask me
The Apple Store was live for about two minutes but a DDOS from everyone trying to pre-order brought it down and they went back to "We'll be back soon"<p>I would love to see how many hits they are getting.
"Quad-core graphics" seems like misleading marketing to trick people into thinking A5X is equivalent to Tegra 3; this seems like a shame since Apple could presumably win without it.
Welp, this does it for me. As soon as i can get a completely carrier unlocked iPad in the bay area, I'm going to switch from my laptop (x61t) to this new iPad plus a dock and a BT keyboard and mouse. All I really need is an ssh/X-window server app, and I can run all my programs on my server or desktop.
In the presentation, Cook refers to the "new iPad" with no "3". Inside Apple, they probably have viewed what we call the iPad 1 and iPad 2 as the prequel 1 and prequel 2 to the actual iPad, which is only now finished.
Does anyone know if OpenGL's 1024x1024 image size restriction is being raised as well? Seems pretty limiting to not even be able to make an image that's as big as the screen without tiling four of them together.
It sincerely bothers me that no where no the apple.com site, has Apple referred to his as the iPad 3. The closest thing to a new name that they've given is "The new iPad".<p>Please everyone stop calling this the iPad 3.
Isn't the LTE migration in part a cost saving measure for carriers and later on the final user?<p>From what I remember, LTE does pump more data in a more cheap way; and the infrastructure for it is more cheap also.
so Apple ditches Flash for HTML5, but requires Quicktime to play the Retina tech video?<p><a href="http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/</a>
I wonder what the implications of this will be for web design?<p>A website built with a fixed with 1000 pixel design is suddenly going to look pretty silly on a new ipad.<p>Of course if you design around large resolutions you will marginalize those with standard displays.
Ouch, Just ordered 32gb 4g (AT&T) $780 with tax.
If I were not using it for development it would hurt a lot more however it still is about double what I would be comfortable with for my own use.
I have four Android smartphones and two tablets, but this is the first Apple product that has really opened my wallet. Literally, my wallet is sitting open.<p>But their store keeps crashing and going back to the offline state. Called their phone sales and they couldn't help me because they use the online system to enter orders. :-)<p>Ah well, I'll get one soon enough.
It says a lot that the longest thread thread here is about data plans. I guess this is a logical iteration of the iPad 2 but they really seem to have left the door open for an Android manufacturer to leap ahead here. Both this and the 4S feel like Apple on autopilot.
I think Apple is doing a great thing by pushing up display resolutions. I can't believe that PC manufacturers still REFUSE to produce laptops (at least consumer grade) with any resolutions higher than 1366x768.<p>I've been watching consumer laptop sales for a year and the only one I've seen with a higher resolutions is a 17" beast. Luckily I got a 15" Macbook Pro from work with a 1680x1050.<p>Everyone's known since the iPhone 4 that Apple would do a hi-res Tablet display, but PC manufacturers still refuse to innovate and put in hi-res displays in their laptops.<p>I refuse to try to write code with only 768 vertical lines.
I feel like apple is already slipping without steve jobs. calling the new ipad "the new ipad" certainly doesnt seem like a smart move (same goes with the iphone 4s - wouldnt you rather have an iphone 5?). and furthermore, there's again very little innovation in the device, the outside hasnt changed at all, albeit being a little thicker. just improving display resolution seems like a change most ipad2 users won't appreciate enough. I just feel like that apple is now just draining every penny from it's customers with small innovations and a huge brand - while still being unable to decide what to do with it's stockpiles of money.
Why I will not be buying an iPad 3:<p>- Resolution: Who cares.
- Camera: Who cares.
- 4GLTE with a ridiculous price and cap. No thanks<p>I don't think there's anything really compelling about the iPad 3 for the masses. Sure, they'll sell a bunch of them, mainly because, well, that's what they are selling now.<p>Being on WiFi most of the time I don't see any motivation to get an iPad 3 over my iPad 2. Most of the time the iPad 2 is used to casually browse the web on the couch, play chess and mess around with other games. In none of these use cases has the iPad 2 screen resolution proven to be an issue at all.<p>Once usage becomes more serious iPad 2 goes on the shelf and I/we switch to computers. All of our home computers are equipped with a minimum of two 24inch 1920 x 1200 pixel screens. There is no way the iPad 2 or 3 experience can compete with this at any level.<p>I think Apple needs to fix the issue of carriers gouging customers for connectivity. We have four iPhones and two iPads. Why are we paying six fixed-cost, limited usage data plans when the devices are on WiFi most of the time? Why is it that we can't buy a "family" plan, if you will, and pay one fee for connectivity. That's what you do with DSL: You pay one amount for a data rate and it doesn't matter if you have one or fifteen computers attached to the service.<p>The next revolution in mobile might not come until the recurring costs involved in using these devices come under control.